Marie Simonelli
Marie P. Simonelli was a on the New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division, Part A. She joined the division in August 1, 2007.[1]
Education
Judge Simonelli received her bachelor's degree from the College of St. Elizabeth and her J.D. from Seton Hall School of Law.[2]
Career
Judge Simonelli began her legal career as a law clerk to appellate Judge Samuel Allcorn and to superior court Judge John Bissell. She then worked as a private practice lawyer until 1993, when she became an administrative law judge. She was appointed to the Superior Court in 1998.[2]
Noteworthy cases
Lawyer faces $150,000 judgment because client skipped bond (2015)
Matthew Jeon took on Zerui Huang's case. Huang, a Chinese national studying in the United States, was arrested and charged with a sexual assault. He was given bond, but he had to surrender his passport in order to be released. Huang did so. The court held the passport until it agreed to return it to Huang temporarily so he could renew his driver's license. While Huang had the passport, he allegedly made a copy and then returned the original to the court. Huang used the copy, which China accepts, to return to his native land. When he did not make his next court appearance, or the subsequent ones, the bail bond company, Callahan Bail Bond, sued Jeon for the money it lost when Huang skipped town. Callahan claims that Jeon knew what Huang had planned. Jeon failed to respond to Callahan's complaint in time, and Judge Susan J. Steele of the Vicinage 2 Superior Court entered a default judgment against Jeon in the amount of $150,000, equaling Callahan's losses.
Jeon eventually tried to respond and filed multiple motions to vacate the judgment, but Judge Steele denied the motion each time. Judges Amy O'Connor and Marie Simonelli, however, ruled that Judge Steele was in error when she refused to grant Jeon's motion to vacate. According to the judges, motions to vacate are to be considered liberally and granted if there is a meritorious defense to the accusations. Here, the judges said that Jeon presented a good defense in his answer, which he was never allowed to file, and he did not behave in an insolent manner in failing to respond. In short, it was a mistake.
The judges vacated the judgment and remanded the case back to the superior court for further proceedings on the merits of the case. Huang is still a fugitive.
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